Long-term carrier lock-in could soon be a thing of the past in America after the FCC proposed requiring telcos to unlock cellphones from their networks 60 days after activation.
FCC boss Jessica Rosenworcel put out that proposal on Thursday, saying it would encourage competition between carriers. If subscribers could simply walk off to another telco with their handsets after two months of use, networks would have to do a lot more competing, the FCC reasons.
“When you buy a phone, you should have the freedom to decide when to change service to the carrier you want and not have the device you own stuck by practices that prevent you from making that choice,” Rosenworcel said.
Carrier-locked devices contain software mechanisms that prevent them from being used on other providers’ networks. The practice has long been criticized for being anti-consumer.
is that some american problem i’m too euro to understand? we got rid of this anticompetitive shit in early 10s
Yeah, the less civilized parts of world still do carrier locking to act as an impediment to switching carriers without also giving up your phone or paying a ransom fee.
Which is why I’ve been buying nothing except OEM unlocked devices since 2016 I Payful price for them, but I don’t have to worry about leaving my carrier Whenever I want and I don’t have to be on extremely expensive cell phone plans either. There is nobody else in my entire life that pays less for cell phone service than I do and I only know one person who pays the exact same and that’s because we are on the same plan on our own accounts. Literally, everybody I know in my life pays about four times what I do for cell phone service.
Yup. I can get away with prepaid 1GB/month for 3€ because I’m almost always near Wi-Fi and don’t really need to use anything bandwidth when I’m not.
I also find it wild how some people will get an expensive contract that comes with a “free” phone, but then don’t switch to an equal but cheaper contract (without a “free” phone) when the contract term expires, or at the very least renew the term so they get a new phone.
Yeah, that one is beyond me as well.
I am 40 and never had a phone bill to date! When I started working in a real job I was 22 and at that time cell phones were still not 100% a necessity. My job gave us a blackberry so I never had to worry. Crazy enough, I’ve been with this job for 18 years now and the job doesn’t seem very secure these days so I opted to purchase a phone directly. I traded in my old work phone for a new Samsung and got a top of the line for like $400. I signed up for Google voice and got a free number and use my work phones hot spot if I go out to use it just as any other phone for the last 3 years now. Only issue I have is hot spot is battery intensive, and some accounts don’t allow mfa with free voip numbers but whatever, free is awesome.
Hey, that’s an awesome setup.
I’ve just been buying phones a model or two behind the latest generation. Bonus points for a refurbished phone. Saves a ton of money and they’re usually not much less capable than what’s new.
I actually prefer to buy mid range phones that are brand new instead of buying phones that are a few generations old just because I know that with a new device the battery is new and I treat my batteries very well like only charging to 80% and so on. So I’m a lot more likely to buy like the Pixel A series or like the Motorola G series and such than I am to buy the latest Pixel flagship or whatever.
As an American, can I have some of that freedom?
I’ve had that freedom for the entire duration of the existence of smartphones, in the USA. I buy my phones with no contract, at discounted prices, then I flash them with custom ROMs to improve everything, and I use no contract cell phone service. Since about 2007, that is.
Cool.
You can, just buy the phone unlocked online and then get download an eSIM from a carrier. Bear in mind when buying the phone unlocked you’ll need to pay the full phone price up front and won’t be able to finance it through your phone plan like most Americans
Rephrased. Countries are allowing exploitation the rest of the world has already learned from. Aka GREED
In the US, almost no one buys their phones outright. They “lease to own”. Anyone whe does buy their phone outright can just buy the unlocked ones.
So I’m not sure what this rule would actually change. You’re already not Carrier locked if you bought your phone. You’re only Carrier locked if you lease it.
The big fuck up was eliminating competition by allowing t mobile to buy sprint. Too many pieces of shit were in charge 2016 to 2020.
I know lots of Americans who buy their phones without those stupid contracts. It’s not uncommon at all. I have never have a phone on a contract.
In your circle maybe, I’d love the statistics on this though because I’m pretty sure the overwhelming majority are paying for their phones on installment through their carriers.
Yep. Or quasi installments. They usually make it where your paying like $20 a month on the phone for two years, but they’re deducting $20 a month off your monthly service at the same time. That way if you try to break contract, you have to pay for the rest of your phone that you still owe.
Yep. “Free phone” via bill credits for 2 years but they’ll proudly proclaim they don’t do contracts and there’s no ETFs. Technically true, but realistically no difference.
I’m the only person I know who buys their phones unlocked. I think a lot of people rely on the store where they buy the phone to set it up and get all their stuff transfered over. Just getting a new phone in the mail is a recipe for disaster for like a solid 60% of the US population.
I’m getting my phone on a loan at 0%. If I want to switch carriers, then I’ll pay off the rest of the cost of my phone and they unlock it for me, but considering we’ve been running rather insane inflation over the last few years, I’m glad I made AT&T pick up that tab. I see no point in buying outright as I’m not changing carriers multiple times in a year.
You should really check out an MVNO if you can afford to pay off your phone. You’ll save a LOT. I personally use Helium Mobile (uses Tmo and consumer decentralized network) but there are MVNOs that use AT&T if you prefer their coverage.
The major carriers overcharge for service since they lock people in with 0% financing.
My work pays me a stipend if I stay on one of the big three since they have SLAs with them, so it’s hard to beat the price. $20 for 50 GB 5G is my out of pocket because I wanted to put my AppleWatch on the plan.
Why would they not allow an mvno? Odd.
Mine is $6/mo unlimited since I was on the beta for Helium. It’s $20/mo now.
I’ve had a couple. The issue is that you don’t save any money on their service if you have your own. So it’s basically “you can pay us $70 a month and buy your phone yourself, or you can pay us $70 a month and have this phone under contract for two years that we’ll give you.”
Never heard of an MVNO huh? I bought my phones outright and have enjoyed having 4 lines for $105/mo.
I have cell tower priority, unlimited data, and 40GB hotspot per month.
Strangely, if I see internet deprioritized on 5G (which is rare), I switch my settings to 4G and it’s blazing fast. So I’ve never had a problem.
So then you buy the unlocked version, just like the person said. This applies more to people leasing it who are locked in, like they said. Do you not have any reading comprehension?
Sprint would have failed without the merger and we would have had three carriers anyway so it doesn’t matter whether they merged or not and in fact it’s probably better that they did because it caused T-Mobile’s service to improve dramatically since then. I knew friends who had T-Mobile back in 2012 and it was a joke. I had T-Mobile in 2016 and it was only okay.
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The merger is still something that I’m 50/50 on because it made T-Mobile’s service so much more reliable, and iirc Sprint was genuinely struggling.
It still sucks that Boost isn’t going anywhere
They were on the verge of bankruptcy, really the 2 options were
Let T-Mobile (a distant third competitor to the big 2) buy them
Let sprint die, the big 2 buy large chucks of sprint anyways for pennies on the dollar post-bankruptcy and make their distance from T-Mobile even bigger.
If you need another reason, AT&T was very against the deal, so you KNOW what they think is bad is probably actually good for consumers
I have amazing fiber internet from ATT. I’m using it to make this post. FUCK ATT AND FUCK EVERYTHING THEY STAND FOR. I MEAN THIS PROFESSIONALLY TOO. I HAVE TO TRY TO CALL THESE FUCKING ASSHATS DAILY.
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Not always true, I bought a smart talk phone for my kid and the phone was paid in full at the time of purchase. It’s still carrier locked 5 years later because they say “it wasn’t in service for x amount of time and therefore isn’t eligible”. I even reported this to the FCC, opened a case, and they did fuckall and closed the report.
Did you have it active for 2 years? I’ve never had an issue before. Only done it like twice, though.
It was active for about 3 months, until she broke the screen. I replaced her device and put the phone on the shelf. I replaced the screen and digitizer a year later when I needed a spare handset and they told me “it had never been on network” and was ineligible for being unlocked. Which is bullshit because the phone was bought and paid for at the time I purchased it in a box at the store with a prepaid card. As far as I’m concerned, straight talk still owes me 200$. Even if the phone was NEVER activated, I still own it outright, making it mine to do with what I please.
I wonder what the percentage is these days. Almost everyone I know bought their phone outright.
And I’m on the opposite side of that. Lol everyone I know just does the pay as you go 0% Apr option usually.
Same
I remember during COVID, trying to reduce my bills. Called my mobile operator. For £200 fee I could buy out early, and pay £15 per month. Or I could continue paying something ridiculous like £60 per month.
Absolute no-brainer, and I would never get a contract phone again.
In Canada even if you lease to own a phone it’s not carrier locked anymore, you have to pay the remaining balance if you leave, or possibly can return the phone (but that’s just throwing your money away)
Europe (Germany specifically) has their own problems with carriers though.
When you notify them that you’re cancelling your service, you still have to pay for 3 MORE full months of service after that. Even if you’re in the military and ordered to move. That’s a long time.
This 3 month period mandatory cancellation notice doesn’t change even if you’ve been with them for 2+ years.
For US carriers, once you’ve been with them more than the initial 2 years, you are pretty much able to cancel whenever.
We’ll that’s not correct anymore. After at most 2 years (depending on the contract) you can cancel every month. It’s the law since I think last year.
I don’t really see why people are against it, personally I never buy locked devices but they are usually a chunk cheaper and there is always an option for a locked device.
If telecoms were making certain phones exclusively locked (as in not selling unlocked phones) it would be a problem. But rn it seems that it is an easy way to save money if you like a carrier.
okay but you end up paying more - if it was just normal data plan and cost of phone it would be even, but there’s also something paid to middleman that provides something that is effectively credit and extortion services like simlock and some legal thingies, it might have smaller downpayment but it’s not this, see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
this is on top of various security and privacy implications of using a phone which you can’t legally reflash
In Denmark you get two options, you can buy an unlocked phone with cash. Or purchase a subscription with it, and the provider gives you some incentive for it. The subscription is locked for 6 months which is the max by law.
If I buy a phone with the subscription, the discount means you would usually pay 80% of the phones value.
That locks you to a subscription for 6 months that is usually more expensive than the other offers out there, but the difference doesn’t make up for the reduced price of the phone over the 6 month period.
So you are actually saving money, as long as you remember to switch to a cheaper subscription after the 6 months pass. The telecom of course hopes you don’t, and that’s their incentive for taking a hit on profit in the short term. It buys them marketshare.
Boots theory doesn’t really apply because it is the exact same phone/hardware. Plus most people don’t really care about reflashing their phone.
As for the privacy stuff I don’t really know much about it in the context of locked phones so I’ll take your word for it.
I think it’s more of a corollary that phone companies can incentivize people to buy more than they need. I live in Canada, where carrier locks have been outlawed for a decade, so we don’t typically get $100s off the phone, but they do often give interest free financing. This pushes people to get a brand new, top-of-the-line Galaxy or iPhone, when all they do is simple stuff that any basic smartphone could do. They just get used to paying “only an extra $50/mo” so once that phone is paid off, they finance a brand new, top-of-the-line smartphone.
The problem is that you don’t get to have a cheaper plan whether or not you own your own phone. Same monthly cost if you get their free phone under lease, or if you bring your own phone.